- NASA sent a ‘super-pressure’ balloon into the stratosphere on Monday
- Less than 48 hours later, he suffered a leak, an “anomaly”
- The balloon fell back into the ocean and NASA hopes to recover the payload
A day and a half after its deployment, the super-pressure balloon and its payload returned to Earth. NASA had bet big on this atmospheric mission of a new kind. Composed of two expeditions (the first succeeded on April 16), this mission was to allow the American space agency to better understand the origin of cosmic ray particles that enter the atmosphere.
The mission, which took off from New Zealand, was to last several weeks in order to collect the necessary scientific data. But less than 48 hours after launch, the balloon is already back in the South Pacific, the victim of an “anomaly”.
NASA has used atmospheric balloons for years to travel to the high altitudes of Earth. But with this new mission, NASA used a “super pressure” balloon. The latter is slightly different from the scientific balloons usually used by the American space agency.
Super-pressure brought super-trouble
Super pressure balloons are indeed able to stabilize at a certain altitude. Conventional balloons use hot and cold air currents to steer themselves, but they cannot maintain a similar altitude for long and melt small “waves” along the way.
NASA now hopes to be able to find the payload, designed by the University of Chicago. In order to limit the impact of the latter on marine life, the balloon had precisely been designed not to float and to sink as “quickly as possible” into the seabed.
The balloons, eco-friendly and low-cost rockets of tomorrow?
In addition to NASA, companies are interested in the development of atmospheric balloons. If these solutions are perfect for scientific missions at a lower cost, balloons could also make it possible to go to “space” without having any impact on the environment and in a much more gentle way.
In France, two companies are developing this idea, Zephalto and Stratoflight. They hope to be able to carry out tourist missions to high altitudes (more than 10,000 m) and thus derive initial income from their balloons. These flights could fly over regions such as Western Europe or the Atlantic.
At such an altitude, the tourists present in the basket under the balloon will be able to observe the roundness of the Earth as well as the starry sky, without any light pollution. The two companies hope to carry out a first demonstration flight during the year 2024 before the launch of operations, ideally as early as 2025.
